Phoebe Waller-Bridge Reveals Why She Removed an Abortion Joke From Her Saturday Night Live Monologue

Michael Ausiello

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Phoebe Waller-Bridge‘s Saturday Night Live monologue originally contained jokes that were “much harder jokes about America,” but the Fleabag phenom ultimately decided to shelve them. The Emmy-winning auteur tells Vogue that the excised material took satirical aim at the United States’ “abortion laws” and how “the world has gone backward in this way.”

Waller-Bridge says she cut the bit because even though “in so many ways women have a louder voice [and] are more empowered these days… if you rant and rave, if you try and make a noise, you’ll be labeled noisy. You have to be careful of that. You have to find ways to protest. I’d really like to write something about that. I don’t know what it is yet.

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“Sometimes you feel it’s braver to say something outrageous, and it’s not always,” she adds. “Sometimes it’s braver to say the vulnerable thing.”

Waller-Bridge made her SNL hosting debut in early October, just two weeks after Fleabag cleaned up at the Emmys. The series’ creator/star personally walked away with three statues, including for Outstanding Comedy Series, Outstanding Writing in a Comedy Series and Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series.

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